Galway, Ireland
After welcoming Teneika to a genuine backpacker’s life we arrived in Galway safe and sound. And by backpacker’s life I mean we got on a bus from the airport that took us to the train station where we sat around like hobos with a hodgepodge of bags piled around us until our train was scheduled to leave. But hey, life is an adventure why not embrace it? 🙂
After spending some time walking here and there we found a nice hostel with open rooms for the night. We settled our bags and headed out to explore town! Galway is a charming little town, complete with bustling walking streets and many musicians playing the night away.
We happened upon this restaurant and thought it would be wonderful to have something hot in our stomachs. It might not be authentically Irish but the food sure was yummy!
Here’s Mary being all pensive as we wait for our dinner. Our table was right inside a window that overlooked the street two stories below.
Super delicious spring rolls for starters.
The others got steamed rice but I decided to go with chow mien. It was so good and hot and steamy! We were the only people in the restaurant at first so everything was hot and fresh.
And tea. Always tea. And such wisdom as their sugar packages had for us. Thankfully, we are all tea drinkers and actually ended up purchasing a package of 50 bags just so we always have some on hand!
We roamed the streets then and found such charming little places to visit. Their sweet shops are just the most darling places!
Such cute nostalgic rows of every sweet imaginable.
And then the next morning we were off! Teneika was our designated driver and I took the co-pilot/chief navigator position. We worked together pretty well and had great fun figuring out the roads!
We got out of the city without too much trouble and were off to the Cliffs of Moher! The scenery just kept getting more and more beautiful and when we saw this tower we just had to pull off the road and go exploring!
It was a perfectly sunshiny day. The weather much more beautiful than I expected Ireland to be.
We kept climbing higher and higher and then pulled off for a look at the beauty of the countryside. Its just hard to communicate the beauty of this place with these few weak photos. There’s something about the wild glory of it all that captures one’s heart.
And then we arrived at the mighty Cliffs of Moher! Oh they were glorious! Just as wild and amazing as I expected but it was truly incredible to get to see them with my own eyes. The sun was shining for a little while after we got there but then a mist moved in from over the sea and everything looked quite grey and chilly.
We were quite hungry so we quickly found a little spot in the sunshine to spread out our simple little picnic.
Baguettes, Cheese and Fruit. We all love simple foods and its so much fun to take your own instead of buying every meal.
The view across the way at the other cliffs was just as wild and breathtaking.
Of course it was quite necessary to walk above the fenced path on the old trail without boundaries. Because who likes to feel hampered and closed in when one can walk along the edge, wild and free? Don’t worry, we were quite safe!
And besides, its more fun out here! 🙂
We were accompanied by some beautiful bovine along the way as well. These are some authentic Irish cattle I can assure you.
The wind was biting and the misty rain chilled our bones but what delights to experience these places with this lovely girl. So very thankful for her!
And then we headed south once more. Our destination was the little town of Dingle situated on a little peninsula along the western shore of Ireland. It was much farther than we had thought it to be but the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. Mountains and valleys. So many fields sprinkled with sheep or cattle and separated by lovely stone walls all overgrown with greenery. The sun played games with the clouds and it could be shining brightly when suddenly the sky grew grey and it began to rain. There may be patches of perfectly blue sky while at the same time its raining hard. But as a result we saw lots of pretty rainbows! This country just seems to contain a surreal sort of wild beauty. We definitely enjoyed our day but the best was yet to come…
Rosetta Fern 